Quality of service of mobile users for longcut routes with congested access points

Network resources for mobile users such as available bandwidth fluctuate depending on the level of background traffic. The deployment of many access points enables mobile users to access more network resources on their way to their destination by taking the longcut route rather than the shortcut route. These users pay some extra cost to take the longcut but obtain greater gains, such as in throughput, over the shortcut route. Previous research has shown that the gain-to-cost ratio can be more than double for the longcut route. No considerations, however, have been made for the case in which resource fluctuation is due to network congestion. This paper investigates the Quality of Service (QoS) for a longcut route with fewer resources (real resources) compared with that for one with the total resources (ideal resources) in the longcut route calculation. The results show that, on average, users have gains of approximately twice in real resources of their gains in ideal resources. This finding indicates that users can greatly improve their gains if they could accurately predict the resource fluctuation.